Ed, Edd n Eddy's Hocus Pocus Adventure
by Midget in Glasses
Summary: The Ed's are going to Hogwarts, and they're happy to be going together. But they don't know what they'll do when they're each Sorted into different Houses.
1. In

**Author's Note: **I had this really beautiful author's note all typed out here. "Had" being the key word. My computer decided that it was fun to torture me, and crashed. So I really can't remember what I put here. I think it might've been me hoping that all of the characters are in character. I might have made Eddy too nice. That's not so good. And I sort of guessed for Eddy's mom. I kept picturing Kyle's mom from South Park when I typed out what Eddy's mom said. That's not so good either.

Oh! Now I remember what I put here. Ed, Edd, Eddy and the rest of the cul-de-sac kids are all in the Harry Potter world here. So I guess it's AU. Is that the right term? I'm debating whether to insert them in Harry's timeline or the Marauders' timeline. Some opinions on this would be appreciated. Well, I think I've talked long enough now. Enjoy the first chapter. :)

_Disclaimer: _Ed, Edd n Eddy belongs to Danny Antonucci, and Harry Potter belongs to its obsessive fandom. And maybe Rowling.

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"Eddy! Get in the house!"

"One _minute_, Mom!" Eddy pounded in the second-to-last nail of his latest scam.

"Actually, Eddy, I believe that duct tape would be less hazardous and considerably more adhesive," said Double D, nervously eyeing the pointed ends of the nails that protruded out of the pieces of cardboard that Eddy was hammering together.

"Yeah, yeah, Sockhead." Eddy rolled his eyes and drove the last nail into place.

"Look, guys!" Ed beamed, gesturing at the cardboard he was decorating. "I drew a mutant alien Dinosauriablob from Issue 3, mint condition."

"Um, charming, Ed," said Double D.

"Hey!" Eddy scowled. "You're supposed to be drawing records, not monsters from your stupid comics!"

"But monsters are cool, Eddy!"

"_Eddy!_ Home, _now_!"

"All RIGHT, Mom!" Eddy bellowed back. He surveyed the completed scam with a critical eye and rubbed his hands together gleefully. "This scam's a cinch! We'll be rich by the end of today, boys!"

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Double D sighed, but he handed the megaphone over to Eddy, who took it and shouted:

"Step right up, kids of the cul-de-sac, because the Eds' Rent-a-Record store is now open for business! Crank up your favorite tunes for the knockout price of just one quar--"

"EDWARD SKIP--"

"FINE, MOM, I'M GOING!" The megaphone blared feedback as Eddy's well-practiced vocal cords reached their maximum capacity. He shoved the megaphone into Double D's hands and stomped across the cul-de-sac to his house.

"I'll be right back!" he yelled back to the other Ed's. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Make _sure _Jonny doesn't try to pay us with acorns again!"

Eddy threw open the door to his house, not bothering to slam it shut after him. "_What_, Mom?"

"In the kitchen!"

Eddy marched to the kitchen, wondering if his mom had found out about his affiliation with the "Jimmy episode" last week. He pushed past the open door. "It wasn't me, Mom, I'd never stick the frog in Jimmy's--"

His lie trailed away unfinished when he saw the owl in the window.

His heart skipped a beat.

"No way," he finally said.

The owl took off, revealing the letter on the kitchen mantelpiece. A letter with a dark red crest marked with an H--

Before Eddy could react, his mother squeezed him in a bone-crushing hug, cutting off all of his circulation. "You finally did something good for once in your life, Eddy, you ain't a Squib after all, and I'll be darned if your father and I aren't proud of you!"

"Eh," mumbled his dad, who was flicking through sports channels in the living room. "School for wizards. Learning magic. Feh."

"Would it kill you to show some appreciation for your son?!" Eddy's mom shouted at her husband, who shrugged and kept his eyes focused on the television screen.

"Hey, Mom," Eddy managed to gasp out. "I can't--breathe--"

Eddy's mother relinquished her grip on her son, and he toppled onto the floor rubbing at his bruised ribs.

"I've already called your retarded friend's parents about it, and they've said that they'll take you to Diagon Alley along with that other no-good friend of yours, that geek, to get your school things, and--"

"Okay, can I just take the stupid letter and go?" Eddy feigned disgruntlement, but he could feel a burning excitement building up somewhere in his gut.

"All right, all right." Instantly, his mom's expression changed from a rarely seen smile to a narrowed look of suspicion. Crossing her hairy arms, she said, "Now, what was that about Jimmy and the frog--?"

"Later, Mom!" Eddy snatched the envelope away and tore out of the kitchen as fast as he could. He slowed down when he reached the hallway, pausing to eagerly open the envelope, which had already been torn open. His eyes grew wider as he quickly scanned the thick parchment inside.

"'Dear Mr….We are pleased to…accepted at Hogwarts…'" Eddy mumbled. A wide grin spread slowly across his face. He would have whooped right there in the hallway, but that wouldn't fit with his cool and tough personality. So he concentrated on working his smile into a frown. It didn't work.

Eddy would _never_ admit it to either of his two best friends, but he _had _been worried a week back when everybody else in the cul-de-sac had received their letters, and he hadn't. Ed's acceptance was a surefire guarantee--he was a pureblood, since both of his parents were magical, and Ed had already displayed random bouts of magic before. Double D's acceptance was more of a surprise, given that he was a Muggle-born. One of the Hogwarts staff had had to stop by his house and explain to his parents. Kevin, Nazz, Rolf, Jonny--they'd all gotten their letters, too. Only Eddy hadn't. Even though he was just as much of a half-blood as Kevin was. And while he had tried to remain passive and uncaring about it, on the inside, he'd secretly been maybe just a _little _afraid of going off to Muggle school all by himself.

Well, he'd definitely made it into Hogwarts--the letter, solid proof, was in his hands. He didn't even care why it was so late. He was going to school with Ed and Double D.

Which meant that the Eds' Rent-a-Record store would be one of the last scams of the summer before the semester began.

_What better way to end the summer than to con a few suckers out of their money? _Eddy thought, smirking. Now that the excitement of the letter had passed, he was already turning his thoughts back to CASH--and jawbreakers. He hoped that Hogwarts had jawbreakers.

Eddy ran back out into the street. He saw a couple of potential customers gathered around the cardboard walls with undisguised skepticism on their faces.

"I'm in!" he shouted to the Ed's as soon as he reached them.

"In a hole, Eddy? In a box? In a basket full of apples and relish?"

Double D was a little more perceptive. "Eddy--did you just receive your admission letter? That's wonderful!"

"Hooray, Double D! Eddy's coming to school with us!" Ed gathered them both in a hug. (Double D cringed, but smiled, anyways.)

"School is for chumps," grumbled Eddy. His friends knew him well enough to guess that he didn't really mean it.

"So you're not a Squib, huh?" Kevin, who was loitering around Rent-a-Record, sneered. "Wonder if they have a separate House for dorks."

Eddy glared at him. "You buying or what?"

"I don't know," Kevin muttered. "This thing looks pretty fishy."

"Huh! I don't see any fish; do you, Plank?" Jonny listened closely to the inanimate piece of wood he was holding. "Yep, that's what I thought!"

"What kinda tunes you got?" Kevin asked.

"Just give us a quarter and find out for yourself," Eddy retorted, thrusting the jar under Kevin's nose. Kevin reluctantly tossed in a coin; he couldn't resist good tunes any more than a good tire for his bike.

"Me next!" piped up Jonny. He reached into his pocket and inserted a handful of seeds into the jar.

"_Seeds_?" Eddy gritted his teeth. "How are we supposed to buy jawbreakers with SEEDS?"

"But they're Mother Nature's children, Eddy!"

Meanwhile, Kevin pointed a cardboard record player on an actual record, with predictably mute results. Noticing this, Eddy let go of Jonny's shirt and tapped Double D on the shoulder.

"Hey, Double D, that record's supposed to be foil. And Ed was supposed to sing from inside of the record player…"

Double D wrung his fingers nervously. "Well, you see, Eddy, we were unable to find any aluminum foil, so we used your records instead. And I assume that Ed is just late--"

"You did WHAT?"

Ed burst out of the record player, punching a hole in the cardboard and smashing the record. "Twinkle twinkle little chicken, how I want to hug you!"

"MY RECORD!"

"DORKS! GIVE ME MY QUARTER BACK!"

All in all, as Eddy hung by his underwear from a tree branch with both Ed and Double D in similar predicaments, he thought that it was the only end to the summer that he and the other Ed's could have gotten. That didn't stop him from screaming in frustration, though.

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You don't want to know what happened with Jimmy and the frog. And you can so tell I love Jonny.

I realize I gave this fic the dippiest, lamest title ever.

Reviews are amazing and I'll try to reply to any I get. Once I figure out how to because I'm dumb.

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	2. Sticky Notes

**Author's Note: It's been a whole year and a half! Wow, that is pretty inexcusable. I decided to bring this back from the grave. I'm not an expert on either Harry Potter or Ed, Edd n Eddy, and I'm sorry if anything is off or if anybody is out of character.**

**EDIT: Fixed a couple of typos and made Sarah's parents less strict towards her, as suggested by meaara.**

* * *

At precisely 6 o' clock in the morning, the alarm clock that Edd had taken apart and fixed two months ago rang shrilly. Edd turned it off, but not before noticing the various sticky notes that had been carefully arranged around his labeled bed, dresser, and walls.

Edd rubbed the sleep from his eyes and blearily read one note:

_Dear Edward, your father and I are very sorry that we can't be there at the station to say goodbye, but you know that we always have to be at work by 4:00, and unfortunately there are no exceptions. Please be-_

Edd scanned the rest of the note. "Love, Mother," he finished.

He plucked the other sticky notes from their places and tied them together in a neat little bundle. There would be time later on the train to read them all. But first he had to take a long shower and eat breakfast and pack up any loose things around his room.

Edd made his bed and straightened his pillow. Before he left his room, he crossed out the first of September on his calendar with a thick red marker.

A few hours later, he stood outside of the front door of his house, the handle of his trunk in his hand. Eddy's beat up old van pulled up the driveway.

"Hurry up, Sockhead!" Eddy yelled out of the open window. Edd could almost hear the bones in his back snap as he struggled to carry his luggage to the van.

"I'll help you, Double D!" Ed said enthusiastically, leaping out of the van and almost crashing into a profusely sweating Edd. He plucked the trunk from Double D's fingers and tossed it into the back of Eddy's van without any trouble.

"Why, thank you, Ed!" said Double D, barely having time to catch his breath before Ed seized him around the middle and swept him into the van. "Away we go!" he shouted.

"Oh dear," Edd said nervously, buckling himself in as the van pulled out, swerved sharply, accidentally knocked over a garbage can, and finally sped from the cul-de-sac to Platform 9¾ in King's Cross Station.

* * *

"Stay out of trouble."

"Sure, Mom."

"I mean it, Eddy!"

"Yeah, okay, Mom."

"No pranking other students, no disrespecting the teachers, and no…" Eddy's mom paused as she considered whatever other antics her son could potentially get up to at school. "And no blowing up toilet seats!"

Eddy blinked. "Hey, that's not a bad-"

"_Eddy_-"

"All _right_ Mom." Eddy rolled his eyes. "I won't blow up any toilet seats."

His mom looked down at him imperiously. "You'd better not, or I'll send you a curse that'll light your _goddamn ass_ on fire and-"

While Eddy's mom continued with her threats, Ed was trying unsuccessfully to say goodbye to his own family. It didn't help matters that Sarah was busy complaining.

"But Mo-o-o-om, I wanna go too!" she whined.

"In a few more years you can," replied her dad patiently.

"But I wanna go _now_!"

"Aw, I will miss you too, Sarah!" Ed said, obviously misinterpreting Sarah's whining as a sign of her unwillingness to be separated from him. "Give Ed a hug, baby sister!"

"But you stink, Ed!" Sarah scowled.

Ed spread his arms wide in eager anticipation.

Sarah groaned, grumbled something under her breath, and wrapped her arms briefly around Ed. Ed lifted her into the air and squeezed her into a tight, loving hug.

"Let-me-_go_-stupid!"

"ED WILL MISS YOU LOTS BABY SISTER!" Ed yelled.

Edd watched Sarah shout muffled threats into her brother's green coat. He stood in between them and Eddy, who was now being given a stern lecture on citizenship and well-being from his mom. Edd sighed. He wished that his own parents had come to see him off. He knew that they had to go to work and couldn't do anything about it, but still…all he had left of them before he left for Hogwarts was the small bundle of yellow sticky notes.

The train whistle shrilled sharply and a plume of white steam billowed out of the top. Students all around the platform scrambled to board the train.

Eddy wasn't fast enough to dodge the wet kiss that his mom planted on his flat forehead. He burned red with the indignity of such humiliation in front of his two best friends.

"Be good!" his mom shouted as a last precaution. "_Bye_, Mom!" Eddy yelled back, grabbing his luggage and heaving it to the train.

"Oh boy oh boy!" Ed said happily, his blue tongue lolling out of his grinning mouth. "I can hardly feel my pancreas, guys!"

"You're not supposed to, idiot," Eddy growled, a vein popping somewhere in his forehead as he pulled at the heavy trunk with all of his meager strength. Next to him, Edd was having the same amount of luck moving his luggage.

Ed grabbed both of their trunks and piled them onto his own battered one, bounding to the train unhindered. Edd and Eddy stared after him in astonishment before following him into an empty compartment.

Ed slammed all of the trunks down in a rack above their heads with a little more force than was necessary. "All done!" he announced. Then he waved at his family through the window. "Bye Mom! Bye Dad! Bye Sarah!"

Outside, Sarah started bawling. It was hard to tell whether it was because she wasn't allowed to go too, or if she was genuinely sad to see Ed go.

"Aw, don't cry, baby sister! Ed loves you too!" Ed said. "Bye Mom! Bye Dad! Bye Sarah! Byeeeee!" The train began to lurch forward and, picking up speed, it rolled down the tracks out of the shaded platform. Ed continued to say goodbyes until the platform was a speck in the distance.

"Done yet?" Eddy grumbled, slumping in his seat.

Ed still couldn't contain his excitement that the train was moving so he took to running around their compartment in circles, his arms flopping behind him.

Edd took the sticky notes out of his shorts pocket and untied them. He started to read. Most of the notes were short and offered only advice on his behavior and ethics.

_Dear Edward, please be a good boy._

_Dear Edward, washing your hands three times after you use the toilet is excessive._

_Dear Edward, always remember to respect the professors and address them with "sir" or "ma'am."_

_Dear Edward_, _study your textbooks and pay attention in class-_

"You pay _too much_ attention in class," Eddy smirked, reading over Edd's shoulder.

"Yeah, Double D!" Ed agreed, still running around in circles. Grinning devilishly, Eddy stuck out his foot. Ed tripped over it and landed face-first in a heap on the floor of the compartment. Eddy howled with laughter as Ed lifted his face and his monobrow stuck to the floor.

"Very mature, gentlemen," Edd muttered. He continued reading:

_Dear Edward, please don't label every single thing in your new dormitory._

_Dear Edward, never try the potatoes during dinner if they look undercooked._

_Dear Edward, don't worry about which House you'll be entering._

"I haven't even considered that yet!" Edd exclaimed.

"What?" Eddy said without much interest. He was busy entertaining himself watching Ed trying to catch his fleeing monobrow. Each time Ed caught it, the defiant monobrow slipped out of his fingers and ran off again.

"Which Houses we'll be sorted into," Edd elaborated, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

"Oh," said Eddy, looking up at him. "Well, obviously we're all going in the same one."

"Gotcha!" Ed pounced on his monobrow and scuffled with it on the floor.

"Are you positive, Eddy?" Edd said nervously. "What if we are…separated?"

"Separated?" Ed stood up, his monobrow restored to its rightful position above his vacant eyes. "You mean we're not going to see each other?" His lower lip trembled.

"Don't be stupid," Eddy retorted. "That dumb hat wouldn't even _try_ separating the Eds."

"I hope so, Eddy," said Double D, as a reassured smile broke out on Ed's face.

"Anything off the trolley, dears?" An old witch with graying hair wheeled a cart loaded with various magical candies and sweets by their compartment.

Eddy's eyes popped open greedily. "Got any jawbreakers?" he said.

"Jawbreakers!" Ed yelled gleefully.

The witch scanned her trolley. "If you mean these levitating candy balls, then yes."

"Levitating?" Edd asked.

"They make you float for a few minutes, dearie."

"Float!"

"It's my dream come true, Eddy!" Ed beamed excitedly.

"Not so fast." the witch stopped Eddy just as he reached for one of the jawbreakers. "One sickle each."

"Sickles?" Eddy frowned. Oh, right, the little silver coins that looked a bit like quarters. He pulled at his jean pockets. One coin came out.

"How about three for one of these thingies?" Eddy said hopefully, holding up the coin.

The witch looked at him sternly.

"Aw, can't you make one of those whatchamacallit-?"

"Exceptions?" Edd supplied helpfully.

"Yeah, one of those?"

"Sorry, dear. I'll give you one for your Sickle, but I'm afraid that's it."

"But Eddy! I want to float!" Ed wailed.

Eddy grudgingly handed the Sickle over to the witch, who exchanged it for a jawbreaker. The witch wheeled her trolley away from their compartment.

Ed and Edd stared morosely at the lone jawbreaker in Eddy's hands. "We'll have to make three equal incisions so that everybody receives a fair share," Edd concluded.

"We can't, Double D!" Eddy shook his head. "Remember when we tried that before? The thing's harder than Ed's skull."

"Well, we have to figure _something_ out," Edd said.

"No we don't!" Eddy pulled the jawbreaker closer to him possessively. "I paid for it, so that means I should eat it."

"But I want to float too, Eddy!" Ed latched on determinedly to the jawbreaker.

"Hey! Let go, you lump!"

"Ed! Eddy! Gentlemen!" Edd cried, pulling at the ends of his sock hat nervously as his eyes darted to and from his fighting friends. The jawbreaker was pulled back and forth until it slipped from their fingers and flew in the air.

"I got it!" Eddy ran for it and missed, falling to the floor. The jawbreaker landed safely in someone else's hands.

Eddy looked up at who caught it.

"Kevin!" he scowled. "What're _you_ doing here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" Kevin shot back, bouncing the jawbreaker up and down in his hand. "No dorks allowed in this area of the train." He laughed and exited the compartment, slamming the door in Eddy's face.

"My jawbreaker!"

"Dorks!" Kevin's snicker faded away into the distance.

"That little-" Eddy's skin turned a shade of brick red as his fury consumed him. "When I get a hold of him, I'll-!"

"No more jawbreaker!" Ed moaned, as Eddy started rattling off the details of how painfully he was going to kill Kevin.

Ignoring Eddy's increasingly violent threats, Edd sighed and resumed reading the sticky notes.

_Dear Edward, you only need to brush your teeth twice a day, not ten times._

_Dear Edward, remember to write us a letter once a week to let us know how you are doing._

_Dear Edward, take care of your new clothes. Fold them carefully._

"That reminds me," Edd mused, setting aside the sticky notes. "We should probably change into our new school uniforms."

Eddy was still mumbling about the various weapons of torture that he would use.

"I already have mine on, Double D!" Ed puffed out his chest proudly.

Edd and Eddy scanned his striped shirt, green coat, and faded jeans. "Where?" Eddy asked, confused.

Ed pulled his robes out of his belly button. "See?"

Edd turned green. "Ed! That's not very sanitary!" he squeaked.

"Idiot, you're not wearing them!" Eddy said.

"But they're _on me_, Eddy!" Ed pointed out. He threw his smelly robes over Eddy's head. "Now they are on you!"

Eddy lunged at Ed, knocking him to the floor. Edd slapped a hand over his face exasperatedly. Reaching for his trunk, he retrieved his own set of robes and left the compartment to change in the bathrooms.

Ten minutes later, all three Eds were dressed in their uniforms.

"These are uncomfortable," Eddy grumbled, tugging at his starched collar.

"These are cool!" Ed said. He pulled his hood over his eyes and let the ends of his robe sleeves fall over his hands. "I am an evil sorcerer, here to turn you all into newts!" He did his best impression of a maniacal laugh.

"How did he even dress himself?" Eddy muttered as Ed stalked around the compartment.

Edd smoothed down his creased pants nervously. Now that he was all dressed up, it seemed even more official that he was going to Hogwarts. To learn magic, something that neither of his Muggle parents ever learned. Something that he was almost completely unfamiliar with. His insides swooped unpleasantly as his thoughts jumped to how much more proficient with magic all of the other students must be compared to him. He'd studied his textbooks diligently over summer, but that didn't stop the butterflies from congregating in his stomach.

To take his mind off of school and classes, Edd read the last sticky note in the bundle.

_Dear Edward, we are proud of you no matter what happens. We love you._

Edd tucked the sticky notes away in the pocket of his robes. He rubbed at one eye.

"Got something in your eye, Double D?" Eddy said sneakily.

"No, I certainly do not." Edd sniffed.

Eddy doubled over with bouts of wild laughter. "Ed, get a load of this sap! He's crying! Can you believe it?"

"Double D's crying, Double D's crying! Ed teased, prancing around the compartment.

"I am not pouring salt deposits from my eyes!" said Edd defensively.

"Double D's crying, Double D's crying!" Eddy taunted.

"I am not! Ed? Eddy! I'm really not!" said Edd, turning red.

Ed guffawed while Eddy curled up on the ground, wheezing with laughter.

"Double D's crying, Double D's cry-oof!" Ed accidentally smacked into a figure blocking his way. "Pardon me, ma'am!" Then he got a better look and his eyes bugged out. "May?"

"Lee?" Eddy cried, horrified.

"And Marie?" Edd clapped his hands to his mouth in shock.

Lee sneered at the Eds through her tangle of red curls. "Look, girls! Our men's been hiding in here this whole time!"

"Aw, they're all dressed up for us!" Marie squealed, batting her eyelashes at Edd, who let out an undignified squeak. "They're so cute!"

"Let's kiss them!" May said.

All three Kankers sighed with passion.

"No! Wait! Don't!" Eddy shrank back against the wall as the sisters advanced on him, applying pink lipstick to their lips.

"Refrain! Desist!" Edd cowered next to Eddy.

Ed could only scream, "KANKERS!"

The compartment filled with bloodcurdling screams and smooching noises as the train drew to a complete stop in Hogsmeade Station.

* * *

**Hope that was okay! Next chapter is the Sorting.**


	3. Boats

**NOTE:** Oh man I don't even want to say how long it's been. I'm not sure if anybody's still following this, but if you are, THANK YOU and I'm sorry for the wait!

This was supposed to be the Sorting chapter, but I got a little carried away and decided to split the chapter into two, sorry this one's a bit short and straightforward...but it was a lot of fun to write! The Ed's are such great characters, and a lot of the show is character-driven, so I sort of let them take over. (or at least tried to!) And of course I don't own either Harry Potter or Ed Edd n Eddy, or the bits of Harry Potter lines that I yoinked.

* * *

The train lurched to a stop, wheels grinding on the tracks. White smoke drifted hazily from the engine, fogging up the night sky and obscuring the full moon. The doors opened and students swarmed out. They huddled together in the cold air.

As the last people filed out of the train, three incredibly disheveled Eds trailed after them. Their new robes were rumpled and the little hair that they had was tousled. Each bore pink lipstick marks on his face.

"See you later, boyfriends!" The Kankers giggled to themselves as they disappeared into the crowd.

The Eds stood there in a sort of stupor.

"Eddy, I can't feel my legs," moaned Edd, his knees trembling.

"I can't feel my face," Eddy mumbled vaguely.

Ed didn't say a word.

Edd waved a hand in front of Ed's face. Ed neither blinked nor budged. "I believe Ed is still reliving the mo-"

"WE'RE JUST CHILDREN!" Ed screamed, staring at the visage of May still burned into his retinas. Blown back by the force of his words, Edd crashed into Eddy and they fell in a heap on the cobbled floor of the platform.

"Now I really can't feel my face," Eddy said in a muffled voice, planted face-first on the ground.

A loud shout suddenly cut through the chatter of the students. "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!" Edd looked around for the source of the shout, but it was too dark to make out anything other than a yellow lamp hovering in the distance.

"Get off me, Sockhead," Eddy growled, ripping his face free from the ground.

"Firs' years!" came the shout again, and this time a slow trickle of scared-looking first years detached itself from the rest of the crowd and hesitantly followed the bobbing lamp.

Edd adjusted his askew collar and wiped the smooch marks off of his face. "We'd best follow suit," he said nervously.

"High collars and shiny buttons!" Ed agreed, grinning as the encounter with the Kankers faded a bit from his memory. He ran after the first years, arms flopping behind him.

"Hey! Wait for us!" Eddy yelled, running after him.

"Oh, dear," Edd said, following Eddy.

They caught up with Ed and the rest of the first years, who were gathered before a very large and extremely hairy figure.

"My word!" Edd gasped. "Is that a man?"

Eddy squinted. "Looks more like Rolf's back to me."

Someone a few students ahead of them turned around at the mention of his name. "Ed-boys?" he exclaimed.

"Rolf!" Ed yelled.

"Oh great, it's you again," a voice next to Rolf sneered.

"Kevin," Eddy said through gritted teeth.

"Hi, guys!" A girl next to Kevin smiled and waved.

"Nazz?" Edd squeaked, breaking into a nervous sweat.

"Boy, Plank, sure is a small world after all!" a boy behind Nazz sniggered.

Before one of the Eds could respond with the appropriate name, the mammoth man, who introduced himself as Hagrid, called out, "Any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

The group surged forward down a narrow path, stumbling a bit in the dark. Eddy heard rather than saw Edd trip over minor cracks and pebbles and mutter worriedly to himself about the condition of the grounds. But Eddy couldn't care less about where his feet were walking. His thoughts were focused with growing eagerness on magic, school, and best of all, new suckers to make a few quick bucks from.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called, interrupting Eddy's vivid fantasy of swimming around in quarters and moolah. "Jus' round this bend here."

Suddenly the path stopped and the quiet group burst into exclamation at the sight before them. Eddy, too short to see whatever it was above the heads of the other students, strained to get a look over their shoulders, screaming in frustration.

"It's magnificent, Eddy!" Edd enthused, forgetting his worries for a second. "Just a touch archaic, but very quaint, don't you agree?"

"I _would_ if I could just-get-_a peek_-" Eddy jumped up and down in his spot, furious.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid pointed at what must have been a fleet of boats, and the first-years dispersed. As the taller kids in the front left, Eddy finally caught his first glimpse of-

"That's it?" he scowled. "It's just some stupid castle!"

"It's not just 'some stupid castle,' Eddy!" Edd chastised. "Hogwarts is a _very_ important landmark of 10th-century architecture and it's-"

"-_boring_!" Eddy finished for him, watching Kevin, Nazz, Rolf, and Jonny board an empty boat. "C'mon, all the good boats are gonna be taken."

"I got us a boat, guys!" Ed yelled from the shore of the lake, holding a dripping boat over his head. Eddy ran towards him, Edd struggling to keep up. Once Eddy reached the spot, Ed slammed the boat over his head, effectively pinning him inside.

"No refunds will be…nece….ssary…." Eddy mumbled, dropping in a dead faint.

Once Ed saw Edd approach, he lifted the boat again meaningfully.

"I think I'll board the regular way, Ed," Edd said nervously.

"Sure thing, Double D!" Ed beamed, dropping the boat back into the lake with a splash of cold water. Edd clambered onto the boat as Hagrid shouted, "FORWARD!" and the rest of the fleet zipped away.

"Dorks!" came an already distant jeer.

Edd looked down at their motionless little boat.

"It's not moving," Edd clapped his hands to his mouth, eyes widening. "It's remaining stationary! Gentlemen! We may have a serious dilemma here!"

"Lumpy broke it!" Eddy said, coming out of his state of unconsciousness.

"Ed will fix it, guys!" Ed leaped on the head of the boat, rocking it to and fro. "Giddy-up, horsie!"

"It's not a horse, you idiot!" Eddy screamed, frantically trying to free himself from the hole Ed had made slamming the boat over his head.

"Eddy, don't!" Edd said, panicked. "You'll spring a leak!"

"What are we gonna do, Double D?!"

"I don't want to be expelled!"

"Aauuuuugghh!"

"ED WILL FIX IT, GUYS!" Ed jumped to the back of the boat and, yanking on his ear, started up his lips like a motor. He dunked his head into the water and-

ZoooooOOOOOOMMMM!

The Ed-powered boat sped across the lake, faster than imaginable, cold night air rattling Edd's teeth and whistling through the gap in them, reaching the rest of the boats, zipping past them, leaving them behind, further and further into the distance, faster and faster-

"Ed!" Edd's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets at the sight of the cliff looming over them. "Watch out for that-!" A tangle of ivy smacked into his face as Ed mowed past the curtain through an opening in the cliff face, down a dark tunnel, and both passengers screamed as they watched the oncoming harbor rush closer and closer to them-

The boat crashed into the harbor and continued a good eleven or twelve feet into the rocky shore before finally losing its steam and admitting defeat.

A clammy hand gripped the edge of the ruined boat. Edd, his pale and sweaty face still framed by ivy, tried feebly to haul himself out, eventually collapsing on the ground.

"I'm filthy," he moaned.

Ed shook his head, water sloshing around in his empty skull. He pounded on one ear. Water dribbled out of the other, followed by a pebble, two fish, and a massive anchor.

"Nice hair, Double D!" Ed said, smiling as he lifted a strand of ivy. "It suits you!"

Eddy, meanwhile, had been rocket-launched out of the boat when it crashed, and was now struggling to free his upper body and head from the stone wall.

"All right there, you three?" came a bellow from behind them. Ed and Edd turned to see the rest of the fleet of boats sailing smoothly into the harbor, Hagrid in one boat to himself at the front. "Didn't get yerselves killed?"

Edd, upon seeing the closest thing to an authority figure, started to apologize profusely in a teary voice about the state of the boat, but Hagrid clapped him on the back, dislodging the ivy from his head. "Don't worry about it," he said gruffly. "Though I should probably mention something ter Flitwick about this…." he indicated the fast-sinking wreck that was, just five minutes ago, a perfectly working boat.

As the rest of the first years clambered out of the boats, Hagrid seized Eddy around the middle and in one rough motion yanked him from the wall and set him back down on the ground. Then he plucked something else from the ground.

"Oy, you there! Is this your toad?"

"Trevor!" a pudgy boy said, accepting the toad with relief.

The students hurried after Hagrid's lamp, which was already disappearing up the passageway. Finally, the damp stone underneath their feet gave way to smooth grass. The castle loomed over them.

Hagrid led the huddled crowd up a flight of stone steps and before a huge, oak front door.

"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?"

He knocked three times on the castle door.


End file.
